Tourism Winnipeg plays up ‘middle child’ status to woo visitors

Tourism Winnipeg was just being playful with its April Fools’ blog post that dubbed Winnipeg the “middle child” of Canada.

Turns out, the joke tickled people’s funny bone. Instead of it being cast aside, like a middle child is supposedly ignored, the internet ran with it.

So, Economic Development Winnipeg’s tourism team is embracing classic middle-child syndrome traits to lure travellers to the “middle of nowhere” this summer.

“It makes it really hard not to take a fun, creative concept like this and roll it out for real in the summer, so that’s what we’re doing,” said Tyler Walsh, director of marketing at Tourism Winnipeg.

The message spread on social media like a Manitoba brush fire, having racked up more than 7,200 upvotes on a Reddit post in the ‘On Guard for Thee’ subreddit.

“This is brilliant marketing,” read one comment, which itself has garnered more than 1,100 upvotes in the last 24 hours. “I’ve literally never wanted to go to Winnipeg more!”

On its website, Tourism Winnipeg explains: “After extensive research comparing the character traits of middle children with Winnipeg’s value proposition, reviewing the literature and observing a middling number of brands that portray the region, it’s clear — we have middle child syndrome.”

The campaign, which will launch in select Canadian markets, including Thunder Bay, Ont., Regina, Calgary and Edmonton, in early May, includes slogans, such as “You can’t ignore us forever” and “Overlooked & Unforgettable.” It even has a mascot — an anthropomorphic outline of Winnipeg’s municipal boundary.

“It aligns perfectly,” Walsh said.

A few weeks ago, Walsh’s team sat down to rework their pitch to Canadian travellers. The “middle child” angle emerged from a brainstorming session amid the shifting political landscape in which travel to the U.S. is frowned upon owing to the trade war, and there’s a push to support local travel.

“We saw an opportunity where more Canadians are looking at travelling within Canada,” Walsh said.

After digging into research on middle-child traits, the team had an epiphany: Winnipeg isn’t just like a middle child—it is the ultimate middle child.

A study by Brock University and the University of Calgary suggested middle children are “more agreeable,” “honest,” and “co-operative.” The team doubled down by drawing parallels between Winnipeg’s competitive spirit, independence, adaptability, and easygoing nature. Like the campaign itself, Winnipeg thrives on innovation.

“Aw, as a middle child myself, I love this,” another comment on Reddit said.

Getting people to connect with the ad campaign is the goal, but the audience they’re looking to attract isn’t Winnipeggers.

But having the backing of locals, who tend to amplify the message beyond city and provincial limits, makes the job that much easier.

“Because they’re going to share and amplify the good work that we do, and we want them to see themselves in what we’re doing and we want them to be welcoming of visitors,” Walsh said. “This seems to have captured all of those things.”

From a marketing standpoint, Walsh admits his department has to work much harder than counterparts in Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto.

“They’re bigger cities with a brighter light on them,” Walsh said. “But that allows us, in a very Winnipeg way, to take the most creative approach we can to stand out from the crowd.”

Even before the April Fools’ Day post, Walsh said they’d been logging more inquiries about vacation opportunities from people on both sides of the border.

As a result of their current ad campaigns, both organic and paid, they’ve had more people talk about Winnipeg as a potential destination this summer.

“What we’re doing with this campaign is going to drive that forward more, because it captures the attention,” Walsh said.

“We have to strike while the iron is hot to get in front of people with a message that will capture their attention and click through to our website and see all there is to do.”

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca